Patricia Jycerie wept openly yesterday as she recalled how a nagging feeling to check on her younger sister saved her own life when her home was firebombed yesterday.
Jycerie, 54, said she was just about to retire for the night around 1 am when she succumbed to an urge to check on her sister, Evelyn Antoo. Antoo, 52, was born with Down Syndrome and cannot care for herself.
As Jycerie made her way into her sister's bedroom, she heard several loud explosions and saw the living room where she was seated moments before erupt into flames.
Her son, Special Reserve Police (SRP) officer Reynold Charles, 39, who was asleep on the ground floor of the house, was awakened by his mother's screams. He is attached to the Gran Couva Police Station.
When the T&T Guardian visited their home at Frasal Street, Gran Couva, yesterday, Jycerie said police were unsure whether the incident was linked to her only child's job or an ongoing dispute with neighbours.
"I had just finished watching ZeeTV when I keep feeling like I should check my sister who was sleeping in the backroom," Jycerie recalled, noting they threw "channa bombs" inside.
"As soon as I reach in the room and I see her still asleep, I hear 'Pow, pow, pow' and I was about to run outside when I saw the fire already blazing.
"They threw bottles into my bedroom, the gallery upstairs, the living room, the van in front the house... they were pelting the bottles one after the next. If I was in my bed I wouldn't be here talking to you today... I would have burnt up."
Jycerie was able to lead Antoo down the steps at the rear of the house while Charles ran up the front stairway with a garden hose to try to put out the flames.
During the interview, Charles complained of pains on his feet and hands as he suffered burns about the body.
"I wake up hearing my mother screaming. I thought someone had broken in and was attacking her.
"I run out and saw the top of the house already engulfed in flames. I tried to put out the fire with the hose but it was too much. Some of the neighbours came out with water buckets but we couldn't do anything else," he said.
Jycerie watched in horror as the "house that doubles built" was destroyed by fire.
"I sell doubles for real years to be able to build this house. I always tell people, doubles build this house," she said.
As the family waited for relief as well, fire officers trying to reach them were stopped in their tracks by a wooden bridge leading into their street.
The bridge has a six-ton weight limit and the officers had to stop before it and drag their hose a few hundred feet to Jycerie's home.
Charles said if the bridge had not presented such a problem the officers may have been able to do more to save the house.
"It was more work for them. If it wasn't for that bridge, they would have been here a lot faster," he said.
He estimated his family's losses at over $.5 million.
Gran Couva police are continuing investigations.
sharlene.rampersad@guardian.co.tt
